Portugal election: tight race expected with far-right hopeful of kingmaker role – live updates

A first exit poll, carried out for SIC and Expresso, shows the following:

Centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD): 27.6 to 31.8% (with 77 to 89 deputies)

Socialist party (PS): 24.2 to 31.8% (68 to 80 deputies)

Far-right Chega: 16.6 to 20.8% (44 to 54 deputies)

Liberal Initiative: 4.1 to 7.3% (6 to 12 deputies)

Left Bloc: 3.2 to 6.4% (3 to 9 deputies)

Reader’s perspective

José Pedro, a reader, has sent in a comment:

I honestly don’t know what I’m more afraid of - a xenophobic and racist far-right party exerting pressure on a democratic right-wing party, or if a government agreement with the Liberals who pose a threat to a worsening of the public services that are available to a big portion of the country only because they are free - health and education.

Ultimately, the parties who have ruled the country since the people have taken the power back from a dictatorship need to acknowledge how their failure at managing the public sector and giving a response to the very real concerns of the general public, whether they were on the agenda or not, is what is fuelling the far right. They need to step up how they govern and how they do politics, regardless of who wins tonight.

What are your thoughts? Send comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.

Portugal, which in April celebrates half a century since its 1974 Carnation Revolution ended almost as many years of authoritarian rule, has so far escaped the rising influence of the far right seen in other EU member states from Finland to Italy.

A strong showing by the far-right Chega party would mark the end of a Portuguese exception. Far-right populists are in ruling coalitions in Italy and Finland and propping up a rightwing government in Sweden.

Despite setbacks last year in elections in Spain and Poland, a far-right party is on track to win this autumn in Austria, while Germany’s AfD – although slipping since a recent “mass deportation” scandal – and France’s National Rally (RN) are at polling highs.

In European parliament elections in June, radical-right parties are on course to finish first in nine countries including Austria, France and Poland, and second or third in another nine including Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden.

Read the full explainer here.

Turnout by this afternoon has been higher than during the same time of day in the previous election, according to official data.

We asked Marco Lisi, an associate professor at Nova University Lisbon’s political science department, about the key things to watch in this election.

“Several factors distinguish this election from the previous one. Firstly, the presence of new leaders, particularly within the two major parties (PS and PSD), adds a fresh dynamic,” he said.

Lisi also pointed to the impact of corruption scandals.

“Corruption, a key factor in the downfall of the previous government, has been a prominent issue in this campaign. This is probably one of the key factors that explain the increase of the far right’s score (according to available opinion polls),” he said.

The issues in this campaign also differed from earlier elections, according to Lisi.

“The primary concerns for Portuguese citizens during the campaigns were public services (health, housing, transportation, education), welfare reforms and inflation. However, during the last two weeks of the campaigns right-wing parties have successfully shaped the agenda on issues other than socioeconomic ones,” he said.

What will the centre-right do?

Addressing the issue of what could come after the election, Lisi said:

The establishment of a cordon sanitaire against Chega seems unlikely, as the moderate right is likely to pursue all available avenues to attain power, while the left aims to polarise the discourse by leveraging the radical right (and its potential alliance with PSD) as a strategic tool to appeal to moderate voters.

Nonetheless, there is a lack of consensus within the main center-right party regarding the strategy to adopt towards Chega.

Rui Tavares, spokesperson for the left-green Livre party, told the Guardian on Friday that the aim is to avoid the scenario of a far-right party putting pressure on the new government.

In April, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of our democratic revolution and it has emotional elements. If on April 25 we will celebrate the democratic revolution but with a far-right party in parliament probably exerting pressure on a centre-right government, this will be the worst outcome for Portugal. So this is what we’re trying to avoid.

Tavares, a former member of the European parliament known for his work on the state of the rule of law in Hungary, said that the centre-right “in the last decade, has been at least naive, but I think that it has been reckless in dealing with the far-right.”

Luís Montenegro, the head of the centre-right Social Democratic Party, “comes across as someone actually doesn’t see the danger of the far right — which by the way, will swallow his party first,” Tavares said in a phone interview.

What’s next for Portugal’s progressives?

Speaking of the LIVRE party, which has been polling around 4%, he said “people see us as being sincere in our discourse on democracy and on the danger posed by the far right.”

He added:

I think that the progressives can still win this election … I think that we will have to engage in a reflection about what happened in the last two mandates that came out unfulfilled and that we have to renew our contract with the people.

The left wing needs to speak more about the future, needs to say what its objects of political desire are.

We are faced with the kind of politics today that are very polarised around these tactics of fear of the right wing. And I think that the left wing have had trouble in countering this. LIVRE has a specific role to play in this, with a future-oriented strategy of mobilisation.

We asked João Cancela, an assistant professor of political science at NOVA University Lisbon and visiting professor at Georgetown University, about the key trends in Portugal’s election.

Post-election questions dominate

“The period leading to the campaign and the campaign itself have not been so much centred on public policy issues but rather on the political consequences of the election itself,” Cancela said.

These questions included “what should each of the two main parties do in the election aftermath? Will the centre-right coalition negotiate with the radical right? Should the incumbent centre-left Socialist Party support an executive of the centre-right without a parliamentary majority to prevent that from happening?”

“There were endless discussions by politicians and among pundits in the months coming to the election and that has transposed into the campaign period, at the expense of concrete policy debates,” he noted.

Far-right at least partially shaping the agenda

“When policy issues were discussed, especially in the televised debates, they were more often than in previous debates about topics that are the core of the radical right agenda: security, immigration, access to public services by foreigners,” Cancela said.

“Public opinion data do not indicate that those are the most pressing issues for the population writ large, but they were nevertheless made more salient by the campaign. In that sense, Chega was at least partially successful in shaping the agenda,” he added.

He also noted that “there has been a notable absence of international and particularly European topics in the campaign.”

Carlos Moedas, the mayor of Lisbon and a member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), told the Guardian ahead of the election that he believes the centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) – an electoral platform made up of the PSD and two smaller parties – will emerge victorious.

In a text message on Friday, Moedas, a former European commissioner, said:

In the last 30 years the Socialist Party has been in government for 23 years. What is at stake is exactly the contrary. AD will win because people don’t want Portugal to become a one party country. Democracy is made of differences.

Asked about the far-right Chega, he said the question is “will the Socialist let the AD govern if in minority.”

The Portuguese left and right are braced for a tight race as the country votes in its second snap general election in three years, a closely fought contest that is also expected to result in huge gains and a possible kingmaker role for the far-right Chega party.

Today’s election was triggered by the collapse of the socialist government of António Costa, who resigned as prime minister in November amid an investigation of alleged illegalities in his administration’s handling of large green investment projects.

Costa – who had been in office since 2015 and who won a surprise absolute majority in the 2022 general election – has not been accused of any crime. He said he felt he had no choice but to resign because “the duties of prime minister are not compatible with any suspicion of my integrity”.

Voting began at 8am today and most ballot results were expected within hours of polling stations closing at 8pm local time. Voter turnout had reached 25.2% by midday, up from 23.3% at the same point during the last election.

Polls suggest the election will be a close-run affair, with only a few percentage points between the centre-right Democratic Alliance – an electoral platform made up of the large Social Democratic party (PSD) and two smaller conservative parties – and the Socialist party (PS).

A survey published on Friday, the final day of campaigning, put the Democratic Alliance on 34% and the socialists on 28%. But the poll, for the Público newspaper and the public broadcaster RTP, also suggested that socialists and other, smaller leftwing and communist parties could pull in enough votes collectively to outweigh those of the right bloc.

Much will depend on Chega, the populist, far-right party founded five years ago by André Ventura.

Read the full story here.

Good evening and welcome to a special edition of the Europe blog, focusing on Portugal’s election.

Stay tuned for the latest results, analysis and reactions.

And please send tips and comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.